Seeing as I’m the GameCola staff member who lives in the Bay Area, Head Editor Paul Franzen got me a press pass to make reports at the Game Developers Conference this week in San Francisco.
Here’s my first report:
GameStop to Become Obsolete. That was the theme of Nintendo President Satoru Iwata’s keynote address on Wednesday. Here are the hard-hitting facts that I wrote down in my professional journalist notebook:
- Iwata is wearing a leather jacket. Wow. Seriously? The President of Nintendo thinks it’s OK to dress up like it’s 1950 when giving speeches.
- The guy standing next to me really needs to get a haircut.
- Yeah, I’m talking about you. Quit reading my notes, Nosy.
So Mr. Iwata said that Nintendo is going to be focusing on online thingies, such as the Virtual Console and Wii-Ware, in the future. Digital download is a great way to cut shipping/distribution costs, and in the future, Nintendo may no longer distrbute games through stores like GameStop; everything is going to be digital download.
“Wii-Ware is very popular right now,” Iwata said, stating that he knew at least two people who had, at one time or another, heard of it. “And we need to plan ahead for the future, when GameStop goes out of business two months from now.”
When asked how people would buy Wii-Ware games, seeing as buying them requires purchasing the Wii Points cards that are only sold at retailers like GameStop, he was quoted as saying, “Shut up.”
